Tariffs Gebbers Pt 1
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. As trade tensions continue to rise, farmers are calling on Lawmakers to do something.Last week Gebbers' Farms president and CEO, Cass Gebbers was in Washington D.C. and told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade that canceled and delayed orders are costing Pacific Northwest growers money ...
GEBBERS ... "Keep in mind that the further these delays go down the chain, the more we eat as grower and the more it punishes us as growers because we've already sunk numbers into our crop. So, when we have a load consumed in China through an inspection process or heavily taxed, that goes back to the grower because there's no way to pass that back on. We've tried that."
It's frustrating, Gebbers says because there's nothing growers can do ...
GEBBERS ... "The consequences, and I'll just address perishable, we can't store this crop. I can turn my cows out for another six months and wait out the storm maybe or delay those fat cattle or store some hay. I can't do that with cherries. They're rotten in 30 days, 30 to 40 days. We need to move them. Apples are perishable. Once you've committed them to a box, they have to be moved."
And, he says, China is huge ...
GEBBERS ... "China's our number one market for cherries, number five on apples, and number nine on pears, and it's basically we're paying up to 50% in tariffs and if you add the VAT tax on it's another 10 %."
Listen tomorrow for more on Gebbers testimony and his concerns over more tariffs and delays.